Thanks Squiggle, I'd love a cuppa.

I can't believe I actually insisted on painting all of the doors.

Mr Yogi tends to slap the paint on, rather than brush it on carefully - so he's banned from helping. I'm starting to wonder if his apparent lack of DIY skills is all part of a dastardly plan to get out of doing any work.

Hi Skylark, how are you today?

I am fine Yogi, thanks for asking, just had my daughter visit for a catch up x

Could be .................  

Talking of books.....i was watching C4,s Book Club, and a book was reviewed....The Hidden Child, by Camilla Lackberg, a psychological thriller. i think i will get it sounds good.  A woman finds a Nazi medal amongst her mothers possessions , and looking into the past she finds out all sorts of things. it could be worth a read, and its only £3.99 if you buy it thru the C4 site

Aha, something you'd like to confess?

No    

That sounds good, Skylark. I get in a panic if I don't have a few books waiting to be read, so this might be one to buy.

Me too, I have my 'waiting to be read' bookshelves, but it's a pain when you wander around trying to decide what you feel in the mood for. And my favourite authors I hoard, Maeve Binchy, Marcia Willett, I like to know that I always have some really good books awaiting their turn.

I like Maeve Binchy too 

squiggle, re your Wow thread, with The Chinese State Circus, i had a look to see if they were doing The Edinburgh Festival this year,  they were here last year! What a pity i missed them 

Oh what a shame!  It would be great to see them perform, I still can't get over seeing that clip this morning.

I've watched it several times squiggle, I'm still in awe! Yogi, wow that's a lot of doors and I agree that they can't be rushed, dried paint blobbies in woodwork really bugs me, it's got to be done steady and got right We'll have to provide refreshments for you while you fulfil that task! Hi skylark how are you? I'm just going off to read in the bath, mr summer has a beef casserole in the oven to make me feel better, even though he's starting to feel unwell himself- my hero <3 See you soon

Summer I didn't know you were feeling unwell.  For Mr Summer still doing a beef casserole for you to enjoy even though he is not feeling well either.  Wish you both better soon

Summer, I hope you and Mr Summer feel better soon

 

You can buy that yummy muesli online from Goodness Direct. Link It's near the bottom of the page. There are two other cereals in the same range. Besides my favourite exotic fruit (green box)(10/10) , there's fruit and nut (blue box) which is nice enough but similar to other fruit and nut muesli (7/10)

 

Then there's the mixed berries one (red box). The description of this one reads "A global mix of fairly traded ingredients, blending Chilean flame and ruby raisins with cranberries, honey infused blueberries and light crisped rice". It is a bit different from any other muesli I've had as it has rice crispies in it. Unfortunately the cranberries and blueberries are hardly noticeable (3/10).

 

Ratings given are the unofficial El Loro ratings based on years of experience.

Mr Summer sounds a wee gem, Summer.

 

I love that you have rated the cereals, El.

 Hope you feel better soon Summer 
I like cereals but dont like milk, yoghurts or anything creamy  Some you can eat dry and some not, so i am stuck !

Middle son and his fiancee are popping in for a visit. Will try to get back later.

Yes , wonderful x
My sister has booked us to go see The Lady Boys of Bangkok, yes a different thing ! But the show is fabulous, i have to say.  Very much looking forward to it!

I buy my muesli from the Fairtrade stall in church which is generally after the morning service twice a month, apart from Easter Sunday due to a compromise with one member of the congregation who strongly objected to having the stand at all. The fact that the stall is held to raise awareness of Fairtrade products helping farmers in poor parts of the world get a fair price, the fact that we buy the goods at selling price so don't profit out of it and if there is any incidental profit we give the profit to charity, and the fact that the bishop of Gloucester has asked all churches to be part of the community by not restricting churches to only being for services is not accepted by this one individual. When I was on the church council I was one of those who pushed for the church to have a Fairtrade stall and so I am a keen supporter of it. I almost always buy things from the stall, and I gave my ratings for the mueslis to the woman who runs it and have told others about the mueslis to encourage them to have a try. So my ratings are very real, but obviously a reflection of my tastes.

El, i know not of one person who would object to a Fairtrade stall , very odd 
I buy Fairtrade products when i can, and would certainly promote it.
Up here, initially it was the Co-op (called Scotmid here ), that introduced it, but is it fast becoming very popular in other stores and outlets.I see Tesco has a range now too-teabags, coffee, bananas  and other stuff.
It can only be a good thing, and well done you for supporting it ! 

Going off to settle down, old age doesnt come itself ! 
Hugs to all the Buddies  
It must be my turn for breakfast in the morning! 
If not El Loro is usually first up, so strawberrys and a pancake please 
Goodnight 

Good morning everyone 

 

As I'm up first here you are

Good morning everyone. Weatherwise, a dry morning although a little bit cloudy.

El Loro, what a delicious breakfast, thank you - I love pancakes and I love strawberries, too.

I think I should grab a big plateful before Skylark arrives.

 

I didn't manage to get back on last night, as my son and his fiancee stayed longer than expected. I've been reading back and can't understand the person who objected to your Fairtrade stall, El. There are a few supermarkets stocking Fairtrade items now, and IMO, that's a good thing. Well done to the people in your church for supporting it.

Good morning everyone, oooooh delicious breakfast thanks EL

 

To play devil's advocate for a moment I think I probably understand why the person in your church objected to the Fair Trade stand in the church EL and its nothing to do with Fair Trade which is a wonderful organisation.  I think the person concerned is thinking of Jesus driving out the money lenders and this whole business of not sullying the Lord's House with commerce, so quite understandable and we all have our different ways of thinking.

 

Well just between me and you I had the funniest experience yet over the cake recipe book.  One dear friend let me have a recipe (she posted it to me as she is always out) and this lady never makes cakes but wanted to be included.  Well it was just a list of ingredients, so I have sorted out a method using the tried and trusted, butter sugar add eggs kind of thing.  The thing that really puzzled me is that the recipe includes plain flour but no baking powder is mentioned.  Anyway I looked it up on t'internet (what would we do without it - thank you Mr. Berners-Lee [50th anniversary of the first website today I believe]) and it said in there that the eggs act as a raising agent, I hope they are right.

 

Hope you all have a wonderful day whatever you are up to

Good morning Squiggle.

Were you tempted to try out the recipe before putting it in the book?

My paternal grandmother was brilliant at baking and collected recipes all the time. She was convinced her sister-in-law always deliberately omitted an important ingredient when passing on recipes.

good morning We've got heavy rain here, I love it it sounds lovely El, thanks for breakfast, very very good choice *takes plateful and tucks in* I'm shocked that anyone could object to a fair trade stall what could they possibly hope to gain from it?! I loved your cereal ratings, and thank you for the link Have any of you tried the co-op's fair trade chocolate? It's delicious!

Oh squiggle that recipe sounds interesting, do let us know if it turns out well! I saw Sophie Dahl make a cloudless chocolate cake on tv, I'd really like to try it

Good morning Summer, hope you are feeling better.

I am too busy typing up the recipes to start making cakes and of course the irony of it is that I am diabetic so cakes are an occasional treat.  But seriously I am anxious that every cake in the book will work perfectly, it would be awful if someone had their recipe included and then everyone came up to them and said I made your cake and it was awful

 

Summer how are you and Mr Summer feeling today?

 

Incidentally although I can understand the objector's point of view on the Fair Trade stand that would not be my own pont of view and I would have no problem with it because I think it is doing a very good job in getting just that, a fair deal for the workers who make these products.

Squiggle, I can understand that the man is probably basing his opinion on Jesus driving out the money lenders as "It is written, My house is the house of prayer", but, and critically, he added "but you have made it a den of thieves". Jesus was throwing them out because the money lenders were ripping people off with excessive interest, and those selling goods were charging extortionate prices. Our church has deliberately chosen not to make any profit from our Fairtrade stall in order that we cannot be accused of ripping people off. If we were to follow that man's policy, we would have to stop selling our church magazine as we do make a profit on that, obviously the profit goes towards church upkeep. And you would agree with me that he would also object to your church selling the recipe book.

 

It's sad in a way that he has read the passage without stopping to think what it actually meant.

Morning yogi I'm a little snuffly but feeling much better today thank you Mr summer was asleep when I left for work so I'm not sure how he is yet, he's got the weekend to relax so hopefully he's just resting up

^^^^^^^ Can you imagine if that happened?

Re your view on Fairtrade.

I agree with you, El. I do understand what Squiggle was saying (as Devil's Advocate) but in this instance I don't think the man has thought things through.

As there is no profit from the Fairtrade stall, I don't see the man's problem with it.

Glad you are feeling a bit better and I hope Mr Summer gets well soon.

Just quickly popping in to say my computer is on the blink again, it just wont connect to the internet. I am using my neighbours at the moment. 
I have someone coming down later to have a look, if i disappear for a while, you will know its not been fixed  But fingers crossed xxx

Oh no Skylark. I hope you get it fixed soon.

Skylark I hate it when that happens, I get very grumbly if I can't get connected, we do all owe a very big to Mr Berners-Lee don't we?  Hope it is something simple and you can get it fixed soonest.  Hope you and Mr Summer are both feeling tickety-boo soon.

Skylark, I know only too well what it is like to not be able to get internet access. Since I switched over to Virgin I have had no problems at all, but when I was with Orange I had dreadful problems. Only the other day I discovered that I had forgotten to email a client some PDF files (nothing important) last year. I had created the PDF files but was unable to email them and by the time I had switched to Virgin I had forgotten.

 

Summer I hope you and Mr Summer are feeling better soon.

 

Squiggle, I hate pointing out typos to people, but I think the first website was created in 1991 so that would be 20 years ago, not 50.